Brent Batten: Mack, his penny plan, gone, but not forgotten

The Mack Penny Plan, the blueprint the former southwest Florida representative put forward to balance the federal budget, was featured prominently last month in Sen. Rand Paul’s tea party response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech.

Only he omitted mention of Mack, who quit the U.S. House to challenge Sen. Bill Nelson for his seat.

“He and I have worked on this together,” Mack said of his connection to Paul and the plan. “He came on pretty early (as a co-sponsor) and was a vocal supporter of the plan.”

Paul began by saying that the country needs an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requiring a balanced budget.

“If you cut just one penny from each dollar we currently spend, the budget would balance within six or seven years,” Paul said. “The penny plan has been crafted into a bill that millions of conservatives across the country support.”

Under the plan, spending would be cut 1 percent per year for six years. Then spending would be capped at 18 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, just below where spending was before 2009, when spending jumped to more than 24 percent of GDP.

Unlike other budget cutting measures bandied about Washington, the plan would involve actual cuts to spending, not budgetary sleight of hand that discusses cuts in the rate of growth but still results in spending increases.

For instance, in his State of the Union address, Obama said the government is halfway toward its 10-year goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction.

The national debt stood at $13 trillion in 2010. If deficits are reduced by $4 trillion over 10 years shouldn’t that mean by 2020 the debt will be about $9 trillion? Instead, according to government projections, it will be more than $20 trillion.

“It’s hard to imagine people can with a straight face say those are real cuts,” Mack said.

Mack’s plan never got far, even in a House controlled by Republicans. Paul Ryan, head of the House Budget Committee, had his own plan for reducing spending and balancing the budget.

The Ryan plan wouldn’t result in a balanced budget until about 2038. Mack said his plan, now Paul’s plan, would do it in less than seven years.

A 1 percent cut might seem small, but Mack knows the challenge of getting politicians to agree to any reduction.

“It comes down to priorities. A few people are going to have to give up their pet projects,” he said.

A big challenge will be addressing Social Security and Medicare, which see an ever-increasing number of baby boomers becoming eligible for promised benefits each year.

Congress would have the flexibility to make the 1 percent cut as it sees fit under the Mack plan. Only if it fails to act would cuts occur across the board.

For instance, Congress could choose to raise the retirement age to cut the costs of Social Security and Medicare, he said.

House rules limit the amount of lobbying a former member can do for at least a year after leaving office. Mack, who has been doing commentary for CNN and consulting in South America, said he is forming an advocacy group to take on the challenge.

“The plan itself is sound and strong but it comes down to getting enough public support behind it to push the hand of leadership in Congress,” he said.

Support so far comes from dozens of House co-sponsors, about 11 Senate co-sponsors, the conservative group Freedom Works and Lanny Davis, an aide to former President Bill Clinton.

Still, it’s hard to imagine the penny plan gaining approval in a capital as divided as Washington, D.C.

That’s a shame, says Mack. “It’s so simple everyone can understand it. Everyone’s had to do it in their homes and in their businesses.”